The Angels, the Vandals and the Greysteels

Last week myself and Natalie Quatermass were in Sheffield all week being mentored by Third Angel.  Me and Nat are Vandal Factory Theatre Company and, after our first show last year, are developing a new play called English Dirt

A line from our last show kept buzzing around our brains.

“Who owns the roof that you live and eat and work beneath

Is it fear of starvation that makes you believe what you believe?”

This has led us down an English country road of land-ownership, which naturally leads us to question the enclosure laws, power dynamics, nationhood, borders, the State and identity.  With the constant question of sovereignty and Britishness being dragged into discussions across Parliament, the media and pubs our show, English Dirt, set about exploring this theme.

The last year has seen us cover floors with Big Sheets Of Paper and read articles, books and zines around our topics.  It feels like we started this conversation back in 1066, but we’re finally making progress.

I’ve interacted with Third Angel a few times over the years, once at a workshop at York Theatre Royal, speaking at their conference a few years back and generally seeing their productions.  Their co-Artistic Director Alex is a superb mentor who helped us whittle away at some ideas, find connecting themes and narratives and gave us support to find the next stages of our route.

We also worked with band Flora Greysteel, a joyous duo.  We felt our history of land laws should relate to the history of British protest, and Simon and Emily are dazzling in their ability to take the slither of a song or attitude and transform it into spectacular music seemingly in seconds.

I think this last week has taught me a lot about shifting through ideas.  We kept referring to the idea the statue is inside the block of clay already, the sculptor’s job is to excavate it.  We are finding out show, piece by piece, among this vast and important history and story.  If we are wandering down a road, we have thrown away some of the baggage, but also seen new sights along the way.

We also managed to see Standing At The Sky’s Edge at Sheffield Theatre, a show with similar themes about ownership, class and identity in modern Britain.

I wanted to document this week and say thanks to Third Angel and Sheffield Theatres, a big warm hug-filled thanks to Flora Greysteel and my collaborator Natalie Quatermass.  I am excited for the next stage of English Dirt’s muddy road!

20.17 Blog #39: Top Theatre of 2017

Here’s some top picks from the year of theatre-goings from this here 2017

Everything Is Possible:  The York Suffragette Story

It’s no mean feat to bring together hundreds of volunteers from across York with different skills to create a mass community production.  But York Theatre Royal are experts at this by now, and moments of this grand production were a breathtaking visual treat backed by mass voices.  The struggle for the vote is one part of a larger struggle of human rights and class war.  Totally justifies my belief that when cops drag OAPs from the gates of KM8 wellsite in Kirby Misperton they’re on the wrong side of history.  Though I wanted a more scathing analysis of the current political climate (yes, we have a female PM, but yes, we still have mass sexism and rape culture) I was proud to have helped programme some buskers in the form of poets and musicians beforehand for the outside scenes and be part of the faux-protest that did raise awareness of women’s charities.  Wrote a blog about it here.

Pink Sari Revolution

Sometimes shows about social justice can paint the hero as a pure and perfect leader for change, but Pink Sari Revolution was also nuanced and clever.  The main character, Sampat Pal Devi, is a mighty force in the world fighting for women’s rights and inspiring to the core but also a problematic figure.  The writing was inspiringly well-paced and really made me think about how you love along such a complex story in snappy scenes.  Also loved the great tree snarling from the concrete and splash of beautiful pink  in the set.

Youth Theatre

Great Youth Theatre shows have included seeing Salisbury Playhouse’s The Government Inspector, Zoetrope at West Yorkshire Playhouse (blog here), Pressure at Harrogate Theatre, The Blue Road at Derby Theatre and Our Mutual Friend at Hull Truck (as discussed here).  The Youth Theatre sector continues to thrive and make amazing work to rival, even best, what we deem 'professional' work.

Morale Is High (since we gave up hope) - Powder Keg

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything - Middle Child

Two shows I saw on the same evening back-to-back at the same venue and both very similar.  A little bit like a Bus Man’s Holiday in the sense both shows about luckless millennials trying to work out how to make an impact in a grey Tory Britain.  As a luckless millennial, I could only sigh and say “yep, seems about right”.  Both shows used great noisy live music, All We Ever Wanted was a great showcase spectacle and Powder Keg were a great sizzle of two chap chemistry and Beyblade references.

The Tin Drum – Kneehigh

This was my antidote to seeing some meh theatre over the course of the year.  It was expensive, but it was ace.  Visually it had everything you need from Kneehigh, messy and evocative and splashy and bright.  The songs were like a punk orchestra.   Time-to-time it’s nice to drag myself from the back rooms of pubs doing solo sets to see something that dominates the stage with a spectacle of style and sound.

A Show That Gambles On The Future - Mark Thomas

Of all Mark’s shows I’ve seen over the year, this was perhaps the most akin to a stand-up set rather than a theatre show.  Nevertheless Mark’s magnetic energy makes him both a dominating, yet welcoming, presence.  His quickfire conversations and cageless enthusiasm make him a must-see for anyone (like myself) exploring how to not only engage an audience, but keep them hooked whilst you unpack Brexit, the monarchy, Tories and capitalism.  Mark is an excellent example of how you grapple with these huge concepts and leave spirited and renewed.  Also see:  Josie Long.

20.17 Blog #36: Save Charles Hutchinson

It was announced last week that Charles Hutchinson, Arts Editor for York Press, is under threat from redundancy.  You can read up for more context here.  This blog is about the local issue of Charles’ valuable position within the York scene, but I hope it resonates with all local communities that feed into and support one another.

I have old clippings from the very first shows I was in as a Youth Theatre member where Charles reviewed the shows.  Part of the struggle of Youth Theatre is to get noticed by press, nationally and locally.  It is simply not recognised as a ‘proper’ artform by the gate-keepers of the culture, whether the staff of magazines and newspapers themselves or even, sadly, the Marketing Department of theatre buildings.  But Charles would come and review Youth Theatre, and continues to do so.  It is amazing to say to a young cast we have a reviewer in, and their work will be treated fairly by someone in the paper for all their family to see.  There cannot be many reviewers for local papers up and down this country who will readily come and watch, review and champion Youth Theatre.  This is one of Charles’s many mighty traits.

Charles must have reviewed every theatre company in this city at some point, giving them time and space in his columns.  York has a wide art scene, and Charles could quite easily focus on the larger theatres.  But he also visits the pub shows and the site-specific works when he can.

What does this all matter?  It shows that someone with power cares about your work.  That someone in a privileged position can give you space in the local paper, and a platform.  Actually there’s a lot of kindness and generosity in how Charles navigates the scene.

Of course, I have issues with the chap.  We’ve been trying to drag him down to Say Owt gigs for years (even though he always does a lovely preview for us).  We argued about his call to chop out the Porter in Macbeth (the only working class character!).  And I’ll be perfectly honest, I know some people across the network take issue with certain elements of Charles’ reviews or approaches.  But there is no denying he’s always up for a lovely healthy debate and natter, whether about theatre or Elvis Costello.  He’s amicable and approachable around when you bump into him, always up for a chuckle and puts his heart into the scene.  And it sets a great example for cross-promotion, watching each other’s back and valuing our art.

It’s not just the fact we need an Arts Editor for the main paper in the city, but that we need them to be a chummy and committed person like Charles.

I write this because I hope Charles can remain as long as he feels he can best serve York, and that the role of Arts Editor will still exist as a vital lynchpin of such a cultural hub.

20.17 Blog #35: Anarcho-Autosuggestion (and a Westeros wall map)

This week I watched Tim Crouch’s TEDx talk on The Art of Autosuggestion.  If ever you’re feeling bored, just watch some TEDx talks.  You’ll feel much smarter and, more importantly, more productive for your time.

Tim’s always been an influence on me as a writer and performer, ever since I saw his ground-breaking show The Author back in Edinburgh Fringe many years ago, and I love his magical I, Shakespeare plays.

In the video (which you can watch below) Tim talks about Emile Coure and how “our actions spring not from our will, but from our imagination.”  If we can control our subconscious, we can change the way we perceive the world which means we change the world.  Not only essential for mental health, but also for theatre-making.

A theatre company that highly influence me is Third Angel, who have various styles and use various technologies.  But they always acknowledge the presence of the audience in some way.  Alex Kelly beings their show 600 People with a list of welcomes, with appropriate responses.   I recently say Mobile by PaperBirds which not only acknowledged the audience, but welcomed them into the mobile home space, and thus the story.  Though I often struggle with immersive theatre where I am meant to specifically play a role, I do enjoy theatre where the audience are recognised.

This is entirely the spoken word and performance poetry form.  A performer faces an audience, often dictated by the performance space and microphone.  Sometimes the audience are cast, sometimes they are encouraged to interact more, sometimes the poem is not addressed to them but nevertheless it’s hard to ignore a group of people sat.  In theatre terms, there are no 4^th walls.  There aren’t even 3 normal ones.

So this means any story, location or character presented in the poem exists solely in the audiences minds.  Unless props are used, which rarely are, the audience rely on the words and the poet’s hypnotic delivery.

“Let the imagination in” Tim says.

The subconscious re-writes what we’re shown.  Or indeed, told.  We don’t need to believe Hamlet exists in front of us, we just need to place an autosuggestion within our subconscious.  When Hannah Davies tells her story of finding all manner of objects in her son’s pockets we don’t need to actually see them.  That would ruin the magic, and the power, of our own imaginations.  All she needs to do is implant the suggestion of the gun-shaped twig and the bubblegum wrapper.  We shape the twig.  We taste the gum.

Theatre sometimes does everything for the audience.  It lays out the world on a plate.  But when I first read Lord of The Rings, I had no reference point for a map.  I had to construct it myself.  When George R. R. Martin was writing his Song of Ice & Fire series, there was no map.  Book-lovers pieced it together.  Now my wall has a huge map of Westeros and Essos, but at one point that world existed only in the heads.  Maybe this is why I get grumpy about how quickly characters in the show can seemingly teleport from place-to-place.

In my show, Whatever Happened To Vandal Raptor?, I did question:  Why not just cast the show with 4 actors, rather than multi-role them?  Was this my nervousness around working with others?  My ego at not letting others say my words and my story?

I wanted to implant the suggestion of these characters.  They are as tangible as you want them to be.  They appear through me, but moulded and formed by the receivers:  the audience.

The 4 characters in many ways represent 4 different aspects of not only post-punk life but parts of me.  Enthusiastic but stretched, tired and cynical, confident but rudderless, hypocritical and spineless.  And in this spectrum, the audience are invited to find parts of themselves, either on one end in the raging passionate Hog character or the timid, but still present, Bert.  The idea of these characters exists, and those ideas are made real inside the audience’s minds.

“The creative act is not performed by the artist alone” – Marcel Duchamp quoted by Tim in his talk.

“Think when we talk of horses, that you see them”- the prologue of Henry V

See not a punk, but think of a punk.

20.17 Blog #34: Zoetrope, mental health and Youth Theatre

I remember reading a book about Mindfulness.  One Mindfulness exercise is to focus on breathing, to slow down, take time to fall into a rhythm, break the tension and be meditative in order to not get overwhelmed with negative thoughts.  If the thoughts get too over-powering, just pull yourself back to the breathing.

The instructions about focusing on breath, being aware of your whole body and checking for tension and stress all seemed familiar to me.  Doing the exercises unlocked a little memory in the back of my head:  I had, at one point, laid on the floor and moreorless done this exercise before.  It wasn’t called Mindfulness, it wasn’t presented as something for mental health either.

It was a Youth Theatre session, back when I was around 16-18.  It was preparing for a run of a show, or possibly for an intensive rehearsal.  Or maybe even at the end of a long rehearsal.  It was about calming down, finding a focus and making sure mentally, as well as physically, we were in tune with ourselves.  It’s something I have used with my youth theatre groups over the years as a practitioner.

I don’t remember ever hearing the term ‘mental health’ when I was a teenager at school.  I knew people got depressed.  But not the nuance, nor the universality that everyone if affected by mental health problems at some point in their lives.  I remember being aware there was a number you could ring at my University if you needed someone to talk to.  I never did, but I really appreciated its existence.  It seems so clichéd to say, but these days young people today are so much more clued up to mental health issues.

On Saturday I went to see Zoetrope, a West Yorkshire Playhouse Youth Theatre production written by Rebecca Manley and directed by Gemma Woffindon.  A Zoetrope is device which, pre-dating cinema, creates the illusion of movement with a sequence of phases of motion.  A spectrum.  And the characters in the play represented a spectrum of mental health, all denoted by a colour of the rainbow.  These characters were accessible and well-defined, but not stereotypes or caricatures.  They were masterfully portrayed by the young cast who each embraced something unique and tangible about these 7 young people dealing with anger issues, an eating disorder, depression, self-harm, voices and alcoholism to name but a few.  The pace of the show meant we were never overwhelmed, except at key moments when the revolving stage showed intense situations, both within a characters minds and outside in the social world.

The rest of the cast provided the chorus of parents, doctors, nurses, support workers, solicitors and school friends that influenced the lives of these characters.  The power of a tight ensemble presented a clockwork world of formality, with one well-choreographed burst of energy in the middle of the show at a frantic house party.

Plenty of warm moments of humour and camaraderie were balanced with dark, almost hopeless, undertones making a rewarding 67 minutes of strong youth theatre, with a heart-stoppingly powerful penultimate scene followed.

I know that schools are also talking about mental health, and that it’s becoming much more mainstream to talk about these issues, rather than hide them away.  And it’s incredibly stirring that this is being presented through the diverse genre that is youth theatre.

20.17 Blog #27: Our Mutual Friend and Our Mutual World-Building

My favourite author, Franz Kafka, had a great affinity for the work of Charles Dickins.  You can see in his work the attempt to employ Dickins’ style:  Larger-than-life characters, exploring the workings of a city through a protagonist and ‘world-building’.  Especially in books like The Castle and America.

I made the comparison because in 2016 I adapted Kafka's The Castle for Hull Truck Youth Theatre, and this week had the great privilege of seeing their version of Dickins’ Our Mutual Friend by Bryony Lavery.  I used the term ‘world-building’, a phrase which probably needs unpacking by more literary scholarly people elsewhere, but in the context of theatre, Kafka and Dickins are excellent tools to ‘build worlds’.  In Youth Theatre, it’s practically essential you build the world around the characters.

In a Youth Theatre show, you often have a vast array of young people.  The Dumb Waiter or Abigail’s Party or Art certainly exist within a world, but it’s a small world of a handful of actors in a single room.  But Youth Theatre can boast much larger casts, and can use this to their advantage to build societies, scenes, locations and, essentially, a whole world.  The river dwellings, the dust mounds, the High Society toffs, the pubs and the water itself all become locations full of movement and character.  There’s never a dull moment, and the world constantly whirls from place to place with effective pace.  There’s a core cast of characters who present the inhabitants of this world with vigour, all scrabbling and searching for better lives in this grey Victorian land.  Meanwhile the chorus of Mutual Friends shape the world around them: building, exploring and expanding.  It is testament to director Tom Bellerby’s experience with this group, able to mould them into a flawless tight, whirling ensemble.

The end result is an effective telling of what could be a complex story.  It never gets too bogged down in each individual moment, but finds the overarching themes.  Plots, subplots and sub-sub-plots are all marvellously packaged by a tight ensemble.  I could smell the filthy river, the pampered Houses, the stale taxidermy shop.  This is a great success on the part of the creative team as well, the eerie and ever-moving crooked wooden set providing a suitable platform for the cast, not to mention the chilling, ever-present musical score.  Lavery's script is fast-paced, but takes time to tell a few good character-driven joeks before rattling off into another part of London.

In The Castle, I tried to conjure a cold, desolate village of inhospitable pubs, quiet secretive streets and the brooding presence of the Castle itself.  The ensemble of Hull Truck built this world marvellously, but allowed room for perversely flamboyant characters.  It is here that Youth Theatre can really achieve what a ‘professional’ cast of adults cannot. 

I also saw another Youth Theatre show last month.  In The Blue Road by Laura Lomas, recent commission for Derby Theatre, Dundee Rep and the Royal & Derngate, the cast portray a post-apocalyptic world.  Tensions are high, danger lurks and food is scarce.  But what helps define the dystopian world is the backing chorus, their poetic musing on the past, on the present, on hoe, opens up this world beyond the handful of teenagers discussing their options to a larger tale about human struggle.

As someone who visits, and runs, a number of nights where performances are tied to a single mic and a single performer, it is a pleasure to see shows which take me beyond into a huge, sprawling world and navigate the characters within.

20.17 Blog #22: That Friendly Face

When I was 17-18 I started going to more events in York, after discovering the wonders of John Cooper Clarke and performance poetry.  I went to a few open mics, and I recall ending up at a night of poetry at York Library (now York Explore).  I was trying to find my voice in a literary scene perhaps older, more mature and maybe not quite right for a gobby punk like myself.

At the night, I met and chatted to Helen Cadbury. I can’t remember if Helen performed, but I remember talking to her, and Helen being very friendly to this inexperienced young poet.  Over the years Helen was always a sociable face who you’d bump into at events, around York Theatre Royal or have good discussions with over social media forums.

Helen sadly passed away last month, and yesterday I attended her memorial at the Quaker Meeting House.  Helen was a writer, drama facilitator, poet and educator.  Other people who knew Helen better than I have articulated her life and character.

I just wanted to write a blog about how I saw her as part of an artistic scene.  At her Memorial I thought about that first encounter.  A lot of people spoke about Helen’s nurturing side and her support for the community.  But Helen was also a socialist and a pretty fiery person (not to mention someone with a wicked naughty sense of humour).

I was thinking about now, as someone nearing their 29^th birthday and planning a series of new spoken word events under the Say Owt banner, people’s role in the scene and community.

York is a very unique city.  Lots of scenes and communities intersect.  Helen’s memorial was attended by theatre, literature, poetry, Leftie and, of course, Quaker people.  I feel like I dip in-and-out of numerous scenes in York, poetry, comedy, theatre, activism and music to name but a few, and the sub-categories each one boasts.

I think it’s important to be encouraging and nurturing in all scenes.  To give people support, mentorship and advice, wherever constructive criticism or much-needed praise.  To point them in the right directions, to pass them onto other nights and events.  I’d like to do this in the spirit of Helen, not patronising, not intensive.  But just being that friendly face you bump into around this city.

20.17 Blog #19: The Wonderful World of Dissocia

I went to see the National Theatre of Scotland’s tour of The Wonderful World of Dissocia at York Theatre Royal in 2007.  I remember for three clear-as-day reasons:  1. It was the year I went to University, and the period of a handful of years I saw numerous plays that would inform how I looked at, and loved, theatre.  2.  I have the ticket in the play script I bought (signed by Antony Neilson, the author) and 3. I was 18 and we got drunk.

You see, we’d all gone to see the play as a Youth Theatre trip.  We were all the top-tier of the group, some of us had gone off to University, YT was a great place to catch up, do something silly in-between doing silly things at BBQs and festivals and parties.  For some reason, YTR had a drinks offer which, if memory serves (though unlikely it does) pints were £1.  We loved the show, so we went back and saw it again for one of the gang’s birthday.  With £1 pints.  But we left at the intervanl.  I’ll explain.

The Wonderful World of Dissocia is a parody of Alice In Wonderland, with a spot of Wizard of Oz thrown in.  The kind of thing that people like Neil Gaiman riff on all the time.  Lisa goes into a magical world to try and retrieve her lost hour, and in the process meets all manner of strange characters whose existence plays-on-words.  The Oathtaker becomes the Oat-Cake-Eater, The Scapegoat, whose job is to take the blame, the residents of the Lost Lost Property who have lost their sense of humour, temper and inhibitions.  The story revolves around the evil Black Dog trying to destroy/rule Dissocia, and the resolution being Lisa turns out to be the source of life in Dissocia.  However, Neilson’s Dissocia is a twisted Wonderland, the text peppered with swearing, a slab of nudity as well as a sexual assault.  It has a childish quality, like a naughty child was re-writing Peter Pan by replacing the word ‘Pirate’ with the word ‘Knob’ and the show was genuinely hilarious, as well as unsettlingly dark in places.  So we went to see if twice, because we laughed so much.

But the second half is hard to watch.  Roughly 20 minutes, it sees the entire world transformed into a Hospital ward, and numerous Nurses and Doctors come and treat Lisa.  But the energy is flat.  The scene bitingly realistic, tender and the complete opposite of the nutty 1^st half.  It’s because the world of Dissocia is inside Lisa’ head, roughly reflective of a hallucinogenic adventure in the countryside, seeing a goat, an airport, a hot dog van but filtering it into a manic world.  The Black Dog King is both the black dog of depression, and her boyfriend, Vince, who makes her feel guilty of her lapses into another world in her head.

The show stayed with me, because of the context of seeing the show with good mates and the laughs.  But also because the play is brave enough to bore the audience in the second half, a comment on mental health services.  Two extremes, two different experiences, two worlds all within one stage.  In the Foreword to the text, Neilson talks about “the greatest oppositional forces facing normal people come from within…”

Finally, Neilson says “We must be magical or suffer the consequences”.  He wants spectacle, and the ability to make an audience laugh is a powerful, and addictive, tool.  I guess that’s stayed with me, not only I want my events and work to be the good night out full of entertaining fun energy, but also that within there are opposites:  seriousness, politics, drama, tension, silence and commentary.

20.17 Blog #12: All Change, Ta: Gender Equality in Theatre

I’ve just finished reading All Change Please, Lucy Kerbel’s new book about achieving Gender Equality in Theatre (find it here).

This isn’t so much a review as more a reaction.  And when I say reaction, it’s only my own instinctive thoughts (in 20 minutes and 17 seconds, as per my blog rule).

I need to re-read it, even though Lucy’s book is very manageable.  It’s not hugely long (150 pages) and broken down into bite-size sections and subsections.  But when we talk about Gender Equality in any industry, it’s a vast discussion with a lot to explore.

My quibbles with the book are two, and that’s mainly because of the company I keep rather than my own skin in the game.  One is the book is hetronormative in the sense it sees a clear binary between female and male and (unless I missed it) doesn’t clock queer experiences.  And after centring my feminism through riot grrrl, zines, radical feminist poetry and radical feminist friends maybe I wanted some more confrontational language.  But I totally appreciate Tonic, Lucy’s organisation, are about working within the structures to question the structures, being practical and opening dialogue.  So I guess I’ll pop the petrol bombs away for today.

My experience with women in theatre was they were active inspirational educators.  My Mum took me to see theatre from as early as I can remember, and my Year 6 Teacher had studied Drama and wrote our school plays.  Drama teachers at secondary school were women, and my years spent learning in York Youth Theatre was defined by confident and inspiring women.  Tutors are University were sharp, intelligent and, admittedly, slightly bonkers.

Lucy talks about the way that women in theatre buildings tend to be found in administrate roles than artistic.  It reminded me that as much as I owe a huge debt to the women who inspired me to work in the arts, and I’m sure they are chuffed to be an inspiration, is it not the role of women to be the muse for men.  And each of these women were, and are, dynamic artists whose role extended (and continues to extend) beyond educator into theatre-maker.

My own current experience is being a Youth Theatre practitioner, and Lucy talks about the important role of young people in the discussion around gender equality in a whole chapter.  Youth theatre tends to be 60-70% girls, and actually Youth Theatre practitioners tend to mostly be women too.  In fact, I’ve heard it’s quite good to get men to work in this context to offer some diversity to the freelance pool.

I don’t need to repeat all Lucy’s insight into how scripts for young people are often male-heavy, and resign the girls to very mundane, archetypal roles.  This is reflective of scripts as a whole.  The Platform plays, as well as other writers like Laura Lomas and Evan Placey, have been trying to address this.  In my own plays for youth theatre, I’ve always deliberately set up, from the start, the goal that female characters will have a strong voice in the narrative.

There’s an argument that lurks often in Telegraph articles and the Facebook threads of white hetcis male directors and actors that this is a token gesture, that the story is what matters in plays is the telling of the tale and it’s the narrative drive and it’s the universality of experiences and other such dismissible gibberish so the boys can swagger and protect their platforms.

The fact is, the girls in the youth theatre groups I work with are passionate, enthusiastic and highly talented people and deserve to have roles which challenge them as much as the majority of male roles are diverse.  And if the female characters are defining the story, it encourages female actors to define the world.  With Harrogate Youth Theatre, next term we’ll be working on Bryony Lavery’s It Snows.  With a few edits (replacing the insult given to a character in the play called Huntly from C**tly to Runtly) I’m excited that the script puts an equal emphasis on female roles as male roles.

I’m a cisgender man, and very privileged to be afforded many opportunities in life and career not available to women with the same experience.  Like I was inspired, I’d also like to try and inspire.

I’m still very much learning how to achieve gender equality in the arts settings I work, but Lucy’s book is great additional tool to the conversation (or battle).

20.17 Blog #11: Retail Therapy by Out Of Character Theatre Company

Out Of Character Theatre Company’s production of Retail Therapy

http://outofcharactertheatre.squarespace.com/blog/

Out Of Character’s Retail Therapy starts with a simple sketch.  A casual conversation between two people discussing the failings of the NHS.  It’s a nice gentle opener that settles into a realistic tone.  That is, until the reveal these two characters, grumbling about the NHS, are actually Doctors on their break.  This sets the tone for the rest of the show, taking the recognisable aspects of the world and giving it a clever, often surreal, spin.

The frantic rush that surrounds Black Friday is turned into a manic fist fight reminiscent of a Beano comic.  The outcome is the birth of twins and the disastrous loss of a place in the queue.  Other highlights are the ex-Investment Banker working at McDonalds whose desire to please results in an assassination.  Similarly, two cleaners in dead-end jobs are revealed to secretly be mercenaries (when they can get time off work).  An Argos catalogue bonking you on the head can result in the transformation into a fascist wannabe-despot.

This is a cartoon alternate reality, based loosely on our own consumer-heavy world of shops, shopping and business.  But it is populated by people with strange glints in their eyes.

What makes the show really powerful, however, is when these strange people provide no help whatsoever to people who do need help.  Instead of supporting a woman who is having anger issues, she is batted back-and-forth between Nurses and Doctors and Consultants who do more harm than good.  The initial jollity of League Of Gentlemen-esque caricatures soon proves to be a disturbing Kafka-esque web of bureaucracy with no redemption.  Each sketch as a satirical bite making the audience take a hard look at the consequences of a world so obsessed with shopping channels rather than real support and emotion.

Out Of Character charge into each role with a great sense of humour and play.  The sketch-based format is made easier to digest over the hour by the curiosity of what characters will re-appear, what combination of actors will work with who, and their commitment to the recognisable-but-offbeat world of shopaholics.

The twisted humour has the audience laughing at each and every sketch, but the giggling soon fades for the final moment when Out of Character present heart-wrenching facts about cuts to mental health services.  Out Of Character are capable of drawing out the absurd humour of a world fixated by shopping, and then hitting hard the point that this obsession with retail does more harm than good.  For all its chaotic surreal nuts and bolts, Retail Therapy is cuttingly honest.

20.17 Blog #10: 13 Things To Do You Do When Your Punk Play Finishes And You Suddenly Have Lots Of Time

8 Things To Do You Do When Your Punk Play Finishes And You Suddenly Have Lots Of Time

A piece by Henry Raby

1.  Follow-up in the show.  Work out how much you spent, ask for feedback, collate feedback, chase promoters, chase producers.  Store all your stuff neatly so it can be re-constructed when the show breathes again.  Thank the venue, thank the audience, thank people that helped you out.  Thank yourself.

2.  Put Bojack Horseman on in the background and treat it like the radio.  Laugh so it reverbs around the walls at the clever writing.  Sink low alongside the characters into their unique pits.  Feel happy.  Feel sad.  Feel broken.  Thank yourself.

3.  Keep up good habits.  Keep the vocal exercises, keep up the physical lessons learnt.  Keep up the positivity from the show.  Don’t look back in anger, I heard you say.

4.  Plan.  What’s next?  Not in detail.  But, you know, keep the cogs a’turning.

5.  Don’t be creative.  At least, I haven’t been.  I’m storing it up.  I’m itching for it.  When I do it, it’ll flow better than jotting stuff down.

6.  Do be creative.  But in a totally different way.  I played some guitar at an open mic. 

7.  Read something totally different.  I’m not touching anything punk.  I’m not reading any interviews, articles or zines about punk.  I’m reading something political, admittedly.  A Very British Coup.  It’s fun.  It’s scarily predictive of a Corbyn future.

8.  Go for walks by the river.  If you don’t have a river, go get one. You’ll find them just lying around, ripe for the plucking.

9.  Listen to all that Hip-Hop you forgot you said you'd check out

10.  Learn some new guitar chords

11.  Tidy your room (as of time of typing:  unfulfilled)

12.  Clean the house (1/2 fulfilled)

13.  Make a non-demoninational egg hunt around the house for your housemates

20.17 Blog #9: 6 Things I Learnt From Vandal Raptor

6 THINGS I LEARNT FROM VANDAL RAPTOR

So this week I presented my solo show, Whatever Happened To Vandal Raptor, at York Theatre Royal.  The show’s been in the works for a year, and I’m incredibly proud of the final product.  My first ever solo show which doesn’t just exist as a set of poems, but a full narrative story.  First show with entirely new material.  Far from extinct, VR will have a life beyond the walls of YTR’s Studio.

But, because this is the Internet, I have borrowed from Buzzfeed to neatly summarise some of the lessons learnt from this process, production and pretending to be a dinosaur.

You Can’t Prepare Enough

Like a clock ticking down until a detonation, I was very much aware once we hit the rehearsal process there would be little time for my other projects.  This meant my podcast didn’t have a new update for a while, but it also meant I got all my sessions for the Youth Theatre groups I run written up in good time.  We did a Big Shop of food.  As a freelancer, you often have the luxury of dictating your own timetable, but in this instance your timetable dictates you.

DIY lesson:  When you have no manager, you have to make sure your time is manageable.

The Writer Is Not The Editor

It’s hard for me to think of a poem as finished.  Partly because I enjoy tweaking for specific audiences, updating references or changing due to changing attitudes.  I also enjoy adding spicy spontaneity.  But many times during the process, I wanted to change lines, sometimes for the best to make something clearer, often because I worried about the meaning of the scene.  But there’s got to a be a point where the show is the show because the script is the script.

DIY lesson:  Just because you have the ownership over the script doesn’t mean you can control the script.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

A solo show doesn’t necessarily mean you work alone.  A running gag has been the fact I’m an Only Child, and I don’t like sharing.  But I can’t express how much I love the bunch of people that offered their support.  Simon Bolly and Emily Rowan of Flora Greysteel for their advice on loop pedals, Jonny Gill for lending me equipment, John Holt Roberts for giving me some much-needed guitar lessons, for Hannah Davies, Dave Jarman and Jack Dean for coming into the rehearsals and watching a run.  To all the folks at York Theatre Royal, especially Juliet Forster, for their support.  For everyone that shared on social media, that came and everyone that couldn’t make it but wished me all their best.  Although, as an only child, I’m totally not prepared to share my toys, I would like to share my undying, eternal, unyielding and unending gratitude and hope I can return the favour somehow.

DIY lesson:  Punk is not, as Mr Lydon seems to think, about pissing people off.  It’s about building community.

Advertising your Marketing and Market your Adverts

I never studied publicity, I have just learnt it from doing gigs and events over the years, and I’ve far from perfected it.  My Facebook page has over 900 Likes, and the event I co-run, Say Owt, often sells between 60-90 tickets.  We plugged the show through these networks.  We had a feature in York Press, were in the York Lit Fest programme as well as the York Theatre Royal brochure.  We exit flyered punk shows, Josie Long and other York Lit events.  We didn’t get terrible audiences, but we could have done with more.  Was it the price (standard for theatre, not so much for poetry/music).  Was it the blurb?  Was it just too niche?  Things to think about.

DIY lesson:  It’s easy to be stuck inside your own world of punk, protest and dinosaurs, but you still need to make that madcap world accessible.

No Gods, No Masters, Yes To Quatermasters

On this project I worked with director Natalie Quatermass.  There’s no way in the 7 Hells that this show would even exist without Natalie’s ability to keep the cast on track (me) but also make sure the subject matter (kinda me) was heartfelt, well-paced, dynamic and had the true spirit of vital story-telling.  Natalie’s passion for making a strong, exiting piece of theatre is at the heart of this production.

DIY lesson:  Make work with your mates.

20.16 Blog #30: Blogs and bands, poems and young people

My phone must have crashed, or ran out of memory, or decided to rewrite history, because the calendar has lost all the details from the past year.  It’s quite scary how I have to now rely on my memory to note what has happened this year.

I slap my posters on my wall from every event I put on, so thankfully I have some record in the form of paper and bluetack

SAY OWT SLAM

We hit 13 slams and 2 years running of Say Owt Slam.  We kicked off with the very unique and honest poet Sally Jenkinson, followed by a feast of poets, Rose Drew, Lily Luty, Marina Poppa, Adele Hampton and headliner Sophia Walker  for International Women's Festival.  A little later we ran an Anti-Slam, this beautifully bizarre new concept of worst poet wins championed by Dan Simpson and Paula Varjack.  Our Clash of Champions, guested by Jack Dean, was won by Ian Winter.  After popping over to Edinburgh Fringe, we then returned with a spate of slams with Scott Tyrrell, Vanessa Kisuule and finally Rob Auton.  We also ran a couple of open mics hosted by Chris Singleton and Gen Walsh.  And that's not to mention all the wonderful slammers that came and cracked out words, and the amazing audiences who constantly bring the energy to make the nights so intense, but friendly. It’s hard to get a handle for me, I see behind-the-scenes, in front-of-the-scenes and the script-for-the-scenes so it all becomes very day-to-day for me.  But I know much the nights matter to people, and I always appreciate the feedback, the support, the love from the York scene, travelling poets, the guests and Apples & Snakes.  We have BIG plans for 2017, and started recording a Podcast now on iTunes, so I’d say Say Owt is the most visibly one of the big hits of 2016.  Thanks to everyone x

UP THE NERD PUNKS 2

Sequels are always difficult, and I made a laborious joke of this in my second show at EdFringe in 2 years.  I’ll admit, I wanted to spend more time writing and making the show, and the theme became something slightly different to my initial concept.  But I did really enjoy running the show, and always appreciate the spoken word community at EdFringe greatly.  It’s always a learning curve, and never take for granted what it means to be part of that world.  I did manage to get some new poems out of the show which have stood the test of time, namely I’m Sorry I Missed Your Gig and Discount Tescos Bunting, the latter now on YouTube.  Will Up The Nerd Punks 3 make an appearance in 2017?  Stay tuned, true believers…

YOUTH THEATRE

The year began with Hull Truck Youth Theatre putting on my adaptation of Kafka’s The Castle, which I won’t lie:  was a tricky creature to pin down.  As I’m sure any Kafka fan will confer.  But I’m really proud of the final piece, and the production was a great tangled ensemble of characters and I think a modern day (and troubling perspective) on work.  I directed a Play In A Week for the Lawrence Batly Theatre, one based around conscientious objectors of WW1 and the other wizards and spells (slightly different themes I'll admit...). I also wrote a short adaptation of The Emperor’s New Clothes for Harrogate Youth Theatre, but mainly I’m proud to have been doing more facilitation in general for Lawrence Batley Youth Theatre, Harrogate Theatre and York Theatre Royal and worked with their Youth Theatre groups.  Thanks everyone x

GIGS

I kicked off 2016 by putting on an all-dayer of bands for MooseFest.  We did one more Moose gig with Captain Chaos before my parenter-in-gigs ducked out to focus on work.  So I’ve been doing more gigs as Pewter Promotions with feminist queer indie-punk, like Colour Me Wednesday, Ay Carmela, The Tuts, Fairweather Band, Jesus & His Judgemental Father and Jake & The Jellyfish and a whole number of ace supports.  It's important for me to learn about gig promotion and Doing It Right, and not overloading myself.  But what I think is essential is I put on bands I want to see, else it becomes a favour, not a fun experience.  Thanks everyone x

WRITING POEMS

I decided at the start of the year I would write loads of new poems.  That didn’t quite happen how I’d like.  I have this constantly worry I need ‘this kind of poem’.  The funny one to open with.  The anti-racist one.  The one that changes everyone’s minds.  But I have written some poems for Up The Nerd Punks 2 which are now part of my set, and have been working on some in the lying light for December.  I think it’s not always useful to assume you’ll write loads of new stuff just because you say you’ll write a load of new stuff.  So before I go to bed I’ve been writing for 1-2 mins at least.  Just scribbles.  Thoughts.  We’ll see what 2017 holds.

OTHER STUFF
My band put out an EP!  I performed started scratching a new show for 2017!  I spoke at the Art of Punk Conference at the University of Northampton!  I spoke at the Third Angel Symposium at Leeds!  We continued making monthly nerdy quizzes and it's been a mega fun time, I assure you!  Thanks everyone x

I've also been pretty down at times, filled with the usual anxiety and General Blues of 21st century life.  But thanks for all my friends who stick with me, and I'm sorry to those I don't give enough time to, or have let down.

Thanks everyone x Sorry everyone x

Love, solidarity and rage x

20.16 Blog #26: Third Angel Talk

Below is a draft of the talk I gave at Third Angel's Where From Here Symposium 17th November at Leeds Beckett University.  I didn't really read this word-for-word, but hopefully got across the idea.  Third Angel are a 21-year-old Theatre Company making autobiogrpahical word that plays with text, stories, truth and space.

Strawbs Bar 2007.  Probably a kind of chill northerly breeze.  Young Henry, keen to be at University after a Gap Year of mainly working at Virgin Megastores and reading Harold Pinter.

Straws Bar.  Giant cushions in the shape of Strawberries hang upon the walls.  Bannister coated in too many layers of white paint.  Creaky floorboards.  Here, a Young Henry, keen to be at University after a Gap Year of mainly seeing his mates go off to University and attending very safe unenthusing poetry nights, gets up to read at Sticks & Stones

Sticks & Stones, the brainchild of Andy Craven-Griffiths and Adam Robinson, cohorts in poetry and words, a mixture of hip-hop background and literary story-telling.  Bringing poets from across the UK who are the best of the best of a bulging scene before the Scroobius Pips, kate Tempests, Hollie McNishs and Mark Grists did wonders for viral videos.

Young Henry Raby, totally forgets all his poems and ends up sticking Andy’s banana in his pocket.

I stopped trying to be John Cooper Clarke, and like all students, tried to work out who I was at University.  I seemed to me, in the depths of those times, that everyone else at University was doing incredibly well at being a well-adjusted, popular person while I stumbled around.  But I think, and only realise this now, that the best friendship circles I found where at those Strawbs nights.

So at University I developed a kind of personality in 3^rd year as being some raving anarchist because I was against cuts to the University.  In the left-wing circles at the Uni, UI was a incredibly liberal lad circling around Worker’s Liberty, SWP, SP and the Anarchists trying to make sure everybody all got along.

And as part of 3^rd year English & Theatre Studies, we saw Third Angels’ Words + Pictures.  What intrigued me was the autobiographical stripped down approach to theatre compared to other works we had been seeing at the Lowry and West Yorkshire Playhouse.  Also, I’m pretty certain it had Games Workshop references.

“You’re nothing like you are onstage” is something often said to me in the Real World.  On stage, all improvised asides and audience interactive banter, well rehearsed poems and necessary energy required to make the event memorable.

In The Real World, allergic to eye contact, apologetic, fiddly.

I find the world of poetry open mics and slams, the audience recognise truth.  Or that is to say, they recognise bullshit.  Vanessa Kisuule said of our recent slam it was her fav for years because everyone was being themselves.  In London, everyone is (apparently) trying to be the next Big Thing.

Hi, I’m a human being, here’s my story or opinion to share with you fellow human beings.  Thanks.

But it’s a lie!  A goddamn lie!

Because the more we incorporate elements of stand-up, of theatre and character, elements of story-telling, of being the bardic clown, we are blurring what is truth.  We can play with it, make it a performance, even fake it.

If you own the stage, if you are in control as the story-teller, as Third Angel’s work often is, the audience place faith in you, they believe in you, they are prepared to trust you.  They recognise agendas, perhaps they might not always believe a stand-up comic, but there is something very Perfect about poetry.  Unless it’s of the whacky sort, it feels raw and honest.

There’s also the problem if you’re going to get political, like any great public speaking…

So does Henry Raby the performer have a fake quality to him, a constructed confidence which leaves me wondering if I’m being honest to my genre.

In this book on D.I.Y. a lot of the authors are very very good but they’re all talking about the idea of DIY.  Third Angels’ entry is saying, look, don’t worry too much about the ideas.  BEWARE THE SOFA is their motto.  Beware getting stuck sat down over-thinking, discussing, debating, analysing.  Just make something.  Just crack on and do something.  This is one of the unwritten rules of running Youth Theatre sessions (yes there is also YT Facilitator Henry) is you need to get those teenagers on their feet!

So what I take away from Third Angel is their playfulness with autobography and truth, their blurred lines of audience/performer and also their readniess which will hopefully be a boon in the uncertain world of 2017.

20.16 Blog #25: Election Special

So all term there’s been a little spectre that has been lurking beneath the surface of every Youth Theatre session I’ve run this year between Harrogate Youth Theatre and York Youth Theatre, getting stronger and stronger as we entered this recent term.  Like a force that imposes itself in the corner of your eye, this power has grown from a casual aside to almost dominating some games and exercises.  The Spectre of the American Election.

Or, to be frank, mostly Donald Trump as a figure the young people go to as a boogieman who wants to build walls and dominate situations.  Often, he ends up being assassinated in the scenes.

I believe that Youth Theatre should unpack current issues through the use of drama, and so to the best of my ability I wanted to explore what people in power do to stay in power, or get more of it.

The session with my 16+ group was like a role-playing adventure.  Each person had randomly assigned traits (such as a keen gardener, happily married, born in another country, owns a football club, history with the military, holds a Doctorate in Sciences) and a single Secret Objective (put Arts in the spotlight, make sure you are the Leader, put your country on the world stage).  Then the group did some character work to embody the character, we allowed 3 leaders to bring together 3 parties, put one group in ‘power) have them a table, pens, paper and water) and the others stuffed into the corners.

We presented the group with issues, which they had 2-5 minutes to decide who would issue a statement, and what this could contain.  We gave them Marches for Workers Rights, Oil Spills and Remembrance Day.  Instantly they all fought to make the most worthy statement, creating promises, raising concerns and trying to outdo the other parties.  We raised the stakes on a refugee crisis, and added in question time elements.  We allowed them to join other parties and when they made decisions, brought those back to bite them.

But we also tried to keep it fun.  Fergus who works with me was the singular voter of this created country, and read out some invented Polls as the ‘Every Man’.  We also gave 3 bits of breaking news bitingly reflective of our current leader’s misgiving (an indecent act with a balloon, caught in riots fighting police for worker’s rights and finally called the French “cheese eating surrender monkeys”).

What we found was these young people are all pretty liberally-minded, and all groups broadly agreed on centrist issues, such as raising wages, welcoming refugees and not escalating any conflicts.  What was fun was not the decisions they made, but how they presented their decisions, how they wrangled for their own angle and spotlight.

This was an exercise in drama, each character had an agenda just like any complex play, everyone is after something with their intentions and back-story filtering into the current action.  It also meant decisions made in ‘act 1’ affected events later in the ‘play’ (for instance in an example of one-up-man-ship one group renamed a stadium they owned ‘Poppy Stadium’ for Remembrance Day, only for us to claim that Nationalists had used it as a symbol of anti-refugee sentiment).  And, finally, it was a theatre lesson in how devising can work making an immersive world, playing as character for longer than just a short snippet.

But in terms of understanding elections and parties, the very intelligent group had a keen sense of the language of politicians.  There was a sense that good-must-be-done, as none of them attempted to really manage with their positions of power, but at the same time status became central to their decision-making and policies.  I think although we positioned this workshop as a ‘game’, it was inevitable that they different parties would relish in trying to manoeuvre within the game, a small scale version of the larger was parties interact with one another.

But a shout-out must go to the members of York Youth Theatre who threw themselves into the political frame with gusto and, without such commitment, the game would not have worked so well, or given everyone such enjoyment.

Of course this was an experiment, and one I’d like to try again.  We took some feedback from the group, and no doubt next week in evaluation we’ll hear more ideas for making the exercised work.

If you have any thoughts, or want a copy of the workshop plan, or even want me to visit your Youth Theatre group (or even adult drama group) to give it a try, drop me a line henrythepoet@btinternet.com

2016 Blog #24: I hereby place a curse...

This week I took the curse spoken by Rooster Bryon at the end of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem and used it with no less than 4 Youth Theatre groups across this week.  Theyw rote their own curses in group, some fun, some sinister, all very inventive.  Here’s just some examples I salvaged from the workshop floor for posterity:

We are now placing a curse on Christmas haters

Your nose will never stop running

You can only wear shorts in winter

And may Asda forever be sold out of root beer

Your life will be a never-ending assembly

Popadoms will never be there for you

And Curry stores won’t serve you.

Your blood will run as a cold as a frozen bagel

And this curse will never end

We curse you Michael Gove

You have ruined our future

You have increased stress and failure

You have decreased content and success

You have confused, upset and bewildered our generation

We curse you and your soul forever more

We pray you suffer and therefore see our suffering

We curse you with the power of algebra to never be able to find the value of X

We curse you with compassion and manners (you have none)

We curse you with not being able to use nouns and verbs correctly

and not be able to string a sentence together

With all our power, we curse you to have to tell the truth and not be able to use fake statistics

Not to be respected by your peers

The greatest curse of all:  To do every exam that you have just enforced upon us

Don’t underestimate our power!

This curse lasts forever!

We curse you Donald J Trump

May your hair forever look like a guinea pig

May you constsantly be wrestled by protesdtors

May the Whitehouse be replaced by a shed

May the 4 year term by shortened to 4 minutes

May you have mind-blanks’ in all your speeches

May you fall in love with a Mexican

May you be trapped in your wall for the rest of your life

May you discover that Hilary Clinton is your long-lost cousin

I curse thy phone to smash

I curse thy to miss the bus every time and watch it drive away

I curse thy wretched body to always have acne

And they favourite series will carry on going until it is rubbish and have no life anymore.

May thy never enter TopShop or purchase an iPhone

May thee never be able to fill in thy eyebrows

Your instagram will have baby photos for all to see

All your friends on Facebook will leave you

You shall get 2000 dislikes on YouTube

Nobody will reply to your Tweets

20.16 Blog #17: Here & Heritage

Last week I worked on a Play In A Week project for the Laurence Batley Theatre and Heritage Quay at the University of Huddersfield.

The Heritage Quay is an archive of Huddersfield’s local and international history, and it’s a fantastic snapshot of the character of Hudd, something this little York lad has grown to appreciate over the years.

The young people I’ve worked with through the LBT have been feisty, inventive and full of character, and this project was no exception.  Using items from the archive, as well as local historian Cyril Pearce popping in for a chat, and the group’s own knowledge, we devised a show around the Conscientious Objectors of the 1^st World War, mainly from the perspective of the people of Huddersfield.

This involved first a lot of unpacking ‘socialism’, ‘conscription’, ‘liberalism’ and the women’s movement.  I even managed to slide some anarchism in there.  This was just sly of a slog, and we kept it fun and open rather than narrow and intense.  But it had to form the bedrock of the show, like the archive it had to reflect the real stories of the city.  We couldn’t be afraid of these words, terms and historical accuracy.

But it was important to make sure the group knew we were telling the story of these people, their lives, opinions, beliefs, families, friends, work and hopes.  As much as international socialism was a cornerstone, was what more important was making the audience care about these people living 100 years ago.

The group did marvellously well at balancing both, and I didn’t try and force my opinion on them.  Hopefully there was room for debate.  Certainly the show told the COs tale, but the issue was explored from a number of angles.

I think we are told continually that the COs were mainly religious men, but the Huddersfield story is one of working class solidarity as well.  The politics cannot be ignored.  Nor the fact it split the women’s movement, and though some proved themselves good citizens, others opposed a male government’s profit-hungry war.

As much as we need to encourage young people to tell their relevant current stories, it’s also important to remember the place they come from, the world that’s trying to be covered up, forgotten about, rejected and remade.  100 years ago socialism and anti-militarism were not dirty words, they were part and parcel of modern life for the working class of Huddersfield, and a history that should not only be presented and explored, but celebrated and learnt from.